I have the Western Digital 500GB Blue in my Rev. A Blackbook. It's been a very reliable drive for the time I've had it. No problems at all. I can't really compare it to the other one, but being a 5400 RPM drive, I'd say get the other one if speed is your #1 concern. If you just need space then get the WD Blue. I think it's a great value.

I have the Western Digital 500GB Blue in my Rev. A Blackbook. It's been a very reliable drive for the time I've had it. No problems at all. I can't really compare it to the other one, but being a 5400 RPM drive, I'd say get the other one if speed is your #1 concern. If you just need space then get the WD Blue. I think it's a great value.

fr0

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what about it makes it such a great value over the other one, seeing it is faster.

A year ago, I had 3TB worth of seagate desktop class hard drives (7200.11's). Turns out the 7200.11s have firmware issues and seagate totally mishandled fixing the firmware (by releasing a new firmware that bricked the drives for alot of people). At this point, I sent back my two Seagate 1TB's for WD Caviar Black 1TBs. They offer a 5yr warranty and pretty rediculous performance.

I've lost trust in seagate. I would recommend either the 320GB WD scorpio black (if you want a 7200rpm drive). I haven't heard much in the way of problems with those drives.

If you do not have the time I will quote their end results for you here ....

Quote

Conclusions
On the surface, little separates these 500GB notebook drives—well, the 5,400-RPM models, anyway. But after seeing how each handled our diverse suite of performance tests, a clear winner has emerged.

That winner does not come from the Seagate camp, despite the fact that the Momentus 7200.4 boasts a higher spindle speed than the rest of the pack. I was hoping the faster-spinning platters, combined with a larger cache, would translate into better real-world performance. But they don't. The Momentus was often slower than the best 5,400-RPM drives, and while it enjoyed a few moments in the spotlight, those victories were far too rare to justify the drive's significantly higher price.

......

Rather than oscillating between impressive and depressing performances, Hitachi's Travelstar 5K500.B was decidedly average throughout our testing. This drive lived in the middle of the pack, and while its ability to handle a mix of workloads without floundering is admirable, the Travelstar is actually slightly more expensive than our clear favorite of the bunch.

That favorite? Western Digital's Scorpio Blue. We subject drives to a varied mix of performance tests because we're looking for weaknesses, and the Scorpio Blue exhibited none. It may not have come out ahead of the pack in each and every test, but over our entire suite, the Scorpio was clearly the performance leader. At just $90 online, the Blue won't cost you more than other drives we've looked at today, either. Picking an Editor's Choice doesn't get any easier than that.

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